NHS “Sex at birth” on heart age calculator

[QuetzalTerfLus]

I just did the NHS heart age calculator -
https://www.nhs.uk/health-assessment-tools/calculate-your-heart-age

and was asked for my sex / sex at birth - and to ask my GP if I had further questions about this.

i think that is an acceptable compromise - everyone knows what sex they are, the birth qualifier isn’t necessary but doesn’t create further confusion, and anyone who doesn’t know what sex to put seeks further advice.

No mention of gender. Clear writing.

I am interested in what others think - is this ok?

While I agree that it shouldn't be necessary to add the 'at birth' bit, as everyone knows it isn't possible to actually change sex, this is good, clear language for the purposes of the calculator.

The NHS also can't be accused of excluding people who claim they are now something other than M/F.

I agree.

'At birth' is a vast improvement on the usual 'assigned at birth'.

I don't know. Your sex is your sex. If you have a 'sex at birth' then do you also have a 'sex right now'? And is it possible these two are different? We want people to be fully informed about their health and their bodies and I'm not sure they can be while we're obscuring information with ideological terms such as 'sex at birth'.

I don’t like it. It sounds like the nhs think you can change sex. They don’t.

I agree with Pp, it's like I was one sex at birth, today i could be something else, Tuesdays only I'm something different again

It is definitely an improvement on sex assigned or even sex recorded, because as PP note, your sex is your sex, whatever anyone writes down or thinks about it.

It may be that gender identity beliefs are so entrenched that there is a possibility that someone who is transgender truly believes that they have changed sex and therefore this nod to them may therefore be needed by that cohort (as is the instruction to speak to someone if confused), but I find it hard to believe that the number of people who truly believe you can actually change/self-declare sex is anything other than negligible, which means that even "sex at birth", though better, is still giving unnecessary credence to ideogical belief.

The NHS allows you to change your sex marker on records & issues a new NHS number that denotes you are of the sex you’ve changed it too. So you can change sex administratively speaking, in the same way obtaining a GRC allows for similar falsification of documents.

Sex at birth (& asking if it has since changed) does thus make sense in this specific context - at the same time as being skin-creepingly unnatural & wrong because humans cannot change sex. Vastly better than any gender nonsense though.

“to” not “too”, drat it 🤦‍♀️

Sex at birth removed the wriggle room people Ty to take advantage of. Everyone knows the at birth but is unnecessary, especially with regard to health information, but it stops the prevaricators taking a mile.

Sadly I was too young when I was born to remember my sex. I can't ask my mother any more because she has died - perhaps the NHS kept note?

This.

You only have the one sex. It is not ever going to change.

This is a calculator, so of course it is going to be about estimates.

And whilst I don't expect stuff like this to be changed for the 0.05% of the population, transitioning may have negative effects on things like heart age.

TRAs will keep any negative effects secret, but we really don't know what a lifetime's worth of cross-sex hormones will do to a body.

I would certainly be asking my GP questions about this, namely "What in the name of ever-loving unscientific fuck is this utter bollocks?"

Sounds like a good solution to me.
It's better than the wording at my dentist.
Gender : male/female
Next question-
Gender : male/ female / transman / gender queer / transwoman / decline to answer (there were other categories that I can't remember)
I answered the first without making a fuss. I left the next one well alone.

@@ReunitedThorns its because your sex has an effect on the calculation of heart age. so if you are transgender and you put your gender identity as your sex the outcome would be different

@RambamThankyouMam please don't think your GP has any thing to do with this, or any power to change it. Some (many, I would hope) of us are as bemused as you are.

We are also running the clinical gauntlet every day of trying to guess what sex people are when triaging or consulting remotely, because we're apparently 'not allowed' to mark transgender patients' notes in any way that alerts us to the fact they refer to a chosen gender rather than their actual sex.

At least this NHS calculator seems to recognise that sex is important in healthcare.

I think it would have been better to say ‘your sex’. Then give the explanation that sex means male or female as registered at your birth.

Somehow what is written there seems to suggest sex can change. But I agree it could be much worse and there is no ‘sex assigned at birth’.

Prestissimo · Today 16:45

We are also running the clinical gauntlet every day of trying to guess what sex people are when triaging or consulting remotely, because we're apparently 'not allowed' to mark transgender patients' notes in any way that alerts us to the fact they refer to a chosen gender rather than their actual sex.

How difficult for you, Prestissimo. As that is so unreasonable, I wonder if doctors might group together to approach the Government to have this directive changed?

I'm not sure how anyone could use a heart health calculator to take advantage of anyone. I think it's worded this way in order for as many people to get as accurate as estimate as possible rather than as way to stop people "taking a mile".

@ScrollingLeaves I would like to hope so - but I can't even convince my colleagues/bosses at work that this is important. They went on a day course on transgender health awareness and have come back entirely Stonewalled. They're considering how we can best make things work, apparently. I have made my feelings clear (not on gender politics, but professionally on the difficulties this ideology presents to us as clinicians) and await results...

I’d prefer to see just Sex with a little i you can click for further information that provides a clear definition including the ‘at birth’ point.

I think it's ok, though part of me thinks they should just put 'sex' and if people want to pretend they've changed sex then it's on them.

transitioning may have negative effects on things like heart age

Yes... I doubt there's much reliable data (how can there be), so the calculator may be particularly inaccurate anyway for trans people regardless of which sex they say they are.

Surely it would make sense to have the phrase/term 'biological sex'

I think it’s just fucking stupid to be frank. Sex at birth - everyone can answer this. There’s nothing to discuss with your GP.